Taipower to draft nuclear power plant decommission plan

ON TIME:The plan must be drafted three years before the plant is to be shut down, so authorities will be able to review the project, an official said

Staff writer, with CNA

State-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) must draft a plan by 2015 for the decommission of the first reactor at the Jinshan Nuclear Power Plant, which is the oldest nuclear power plant in the country, a senior official at the Atomic Energy Council said yesterday.

The operator of the nation’s three nuclear power plants has to submit the plan by Dec. 5, 2015 to show the council how it plans to permanently and safely shut down the reactor in 2018 as scheduled, Chiu Tzu-tsung (邱賜聰), head of the council’s Radiation Monitoring Center, told a budget-screening session at the legislature in Taipei.

Taipower must detail the costs and manpower it will need to handle the task, and how it intends to dispose of the reactor, which has been running commercially since Dec. 6, 1978, he said.

If the company fails to submit the plan on time, it will face a fine of between NT$500,000 and NT$2.5 million (US$17,200 and US$85,900) and be given a new deadline, Chiu said.

Fines will be handed out every time the company fails to honor the deadline, Chiu said.

By making the company submit a plan three years before the reactor is to be shut down, the authorities will have time to review the project, the official said.

He added that once the reactor is shut down, it should be dismantled within 25 years.

The power plant, located in Shimen District (石門) of New Taipei City (新北市) in northern Taiwan, has two reactors.

Taipower’s second plant, which started running commercially in 1979, is scheduled to be decommissioned in 2019.

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